The Color of Light (37 page)

“About Thursday night,” she said hurriedly. “I was…I don’t know what I was thinking. I was out of my mind, throwing myself at you like that.”

He smiled down at her. She was so young. He took her face in both hands, kissed her lips, once, twice.

“Would you like to get something to eat?”

Her smile warmed him like the sun. “I’ve been living on cereal and milk since Friday.”

They started down Sixteenth Street. As they waited for the light on the corner of Sixteenth Street and Fifth Avenue, he took her hand.

25

S
he must have been starving, but she took her time looking up and down the menu before ordering the cheapest item on it, a tuna fish sandwich on toasted rye, with pickle.

He urged her to order some protein, a steak. She demurred, insisted that what she really wanted was the tuna fish. Then he remembered that she had lost her job. Tuna was probably the only thing she could afford.

He leaned closer so that only she could hear. “Come on, Tessa. I’m buying.”

She protested. She was proud, she wouldn’t have him paying. Rafe ordered the tuna and a Romanian tenderloin, rare. When the food came, her sandwich and a long, dense, charcoal-broiled strip of skirt steak buried under a heap of caramelized onions, he pushed it all over to her side of the table and said, “Eat.”

She shook her head, resolutely reached for the sandwich.

“It’s just going to go to waste,” he said, cajoling. “I’m not hungry.”

She frowned at him
—okay, this time—
cut off a slice and took a bite. “Mmmm,” she said, almost a purr, closing her eyes, savoring. It occurred to him that as an art student on a tight budget, her diet must consist of quite a lot of tuna. She had probably not encountered a slab of meat like this in a long time.

She wanted to share her pleasure with him. For her, he choked down a bite or two. Then she ate it all, down to the last bloody bite. She offered him that last piece, charred on the outside, red and glistening on the inside. The earthy, primal aroma of grilled meat rolled over him, made his mouth water. God, he missed steak.

This time, he declined, explaining that food had no real taste for him. Tessa stopped in mid-chew, stricken. “I’m sorry,” she said, her pity mingled with embarrassment. “This must be a terrible tease for you.”

“I do miss it,” he said. “But I can still smell it. And I enjoy watching you eat. Really. I do.”

She liked the deep lines that formed at the sides of his mouth when he smiled, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He was wearing a charcoal gray suit, with peaked lapels and wide chalk stripes, set off by a shirt exactly the color of heavy cream, and a silk tie in a subdued violet. His cuffs shot a precise quarter of an inch past the ends of his sleeves. His light-colored hair was combed off of his forehead and back along the sides, shining in the light of the overhead lamps. One leg was balanced lightly, casually, over the other, the crease in his trousers like the edge of a knife. Against the backdrop of dark woodwork and white tile, he looked like a Bruce Weber photo shoot for Calvin Klein. Tessa smiled, amused by the idea of him sitting across from her in the comfortable familiarity of a kosher deli.

He noticed she was looking at him, glanced down at his hands, playing with a matchbook. They were in the East Village, crowded in among the other diners at the Second Avenue Deli, the air alive with the peppery essence of Romanian pastrami and the ebulliently cheery sounds of dishes crashing in the kitchen. She was wearing a faded brown shirt with embroidery at the neck and sleeves, the sort of thing you might buy on a trip to India, or a souk in the Middle East. Around her neck she wore the coffee-colored glass bead on a leather thong that reminded him of sucking candy. Innocent, happy, her cheeks pink from the walk, her hair blown in messy curls all around her lovely face.

“Dessert?”

“God, no. I’m going to be full for a week.”

“Here, take this home with you.” He signaled for the waitress to wrap up the tuna sandwich, untouched on the white china plate.

“How was Newport?”

“I’ve never been in a house like that. It was like being dropped into
Brideshead Revisited.”

He was nervous, desperate for a cigarette, thought about asking someone at the next table, decided against it. “What did you do out there?”

Tessa took a paper napkin, idly started sketching. “Oh, you know. Ate too much. Drank too much. Strolled around the grounds. Discussed the meaning of life. Thought about my thesis project. Decided to paint my kitchen.” She looked down at her drawing. “Thought about you.”

“I thought about you, too. Are you…all right?”

“Yes. I’m fine.” She folded the paper in three, concealing her drawing, pushed it over to his side of the table. With a feeling in his stomach like an airplane plummeting to earth, he understood it was his turn.

“Do you know how to play?”

Yes, I know how to play.

She was looking into his eyes. Sofia’s eyes, gazing at him through the moist air of a smoky restaurant, another time, another place.

He got to his feet. The waitress nodded at him, came over with the bill. Tessa looked around for her knapsack to pay for her share, but he was too fast for her, she was already gone with his credit card. Tessa frowned at him. “You’ll get it next time,” he promised. “Come on. Let me put you in a cab.”

“Let’s walk,” she said.

He carried her bag through a drab if well-lit foyer, past a wall of mailboxes and a mirror that stretched up to the ceiling. Tessa didn’t even glance at it, but he did. According to the mirror, she was alone.

He followed her past the elevator bank. Hers was the first door in a small hallway on the right. She inserted the key in the lock, pushed it open, walked in.

The apartment was clean, but not too clean, neat but not too neat. Directly before him was a long narrow space, a wide corridor, really, with a couch on one side and a dining room table on the other. A few posters hung on the wall. Klimt’s golden
Kiss,
a voluptuous Titian nude, Hopper’s
Nighthawks.

She plopped her bag on the table, hung her coat on a coat tree in the corner. She realized that he was still standing before the doorway, and she looked at him questioningly.

“You have to invite me in,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, and regarded him for a long moment. She looked sad, he wasn’t sure why. “Won’t you please come in,” she said.

He stepped across the threshold. She was gathering up a heap of laundry left on the couch, straightening a tipped pile of newspapers, snatching at a plate on the table. “Place is a mess,” she muttered under her breath, and he realized that what he had taken for doubt was embarrassment at the state of her living quarters.

“Stop,” he said firmly. “Stop cleaning up for me.” He took hold of her arm, meaning only to stop her from fussing, but then he swung her around and pulled her close and he was kissing her, his hands sliding up her arms to the sides of her face.

His hands were cool on her face, even his lips were cool, and it excited her, the temperature of his touch, the difference between him and other men. His hands held her arms at first, gently but surely, and then they slid around to rest on the ridges of her back and then down to her waist, bringing her body against his. There was a quick intake of breath, a hiss of air sucked between her teeth, as they came together.

“I want to be with you,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m sorry, I know it’s wrong, I’m not supposed to, but I can’t help it, I do.”

She slipped her arms inside his coat, laid her cheek against his shirt. He could feel her all along the length of him, some part of her was touching him all the way from his chest down through his legs. He leaned over to kiss her, and her face turned up to him in the semi-darkness of her apartment. So soft, so ready, so willing to give herself to him, and as if he were watching from outside himself, knowing who he was and what he was capable of, he felt a pang of fear for her, for what he might do given just the right circumstances.

He loosened his hold, stepped back. “This is a terrible idea,” he said, forcing his hands deep into his pockets. “I should go.” He wheeled around, swept towards the door.

“Rafe,” she said.

It was the first time he had heard her say his name. He stopped. When he turned around again, he said. “Listen. I just want you to know. You’ve probably heard things about me.”

“No, no, of course not.”

“As I’ve heard things about you.”

She fell silent.

“Here’s the thing. About me, the things they say. They’re all true. All of them. Tessa…if we start something…I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop myself. I may look like a man. But I am what I am. And I’m afraid I might hurt you.”

Tessa came closer, then closer still. Took his hand, kissed it, laid it on the side of her cheek. Moved it under her jaw, to the side of her neck, where he could feel her jugular pulse under the palm of his hand.

Rafe closed his eyes. Came to a decision. Opened them again.

“All right, then. Here’s how it’s going to be. I’m not going to try anything on you, Tessa. You’re in charge. You’re going to take the lead.”

One eye gleamed at her from the deep shadow on his face cast by the brim of his hat. The single light from the kitchen turned the color of his coat to rich chocolate, the shadows in the folds to crisp black. She could smell him, the sandalwood note of his cologne cutting through the stale air of the apartment, and she felt excitement mingled with fear, wanted to feel his lips on her, his hands on her, moving, applying pressure.

She reached forward, took his hands, pulling him forward across the threshold. “Come on,” she said, smiling, seducing him. “Let’s draw.”

She set up her easel near the window, plugged in the reflector lamp and aimed it at him. “Take off your coat,” she told him.

“Where shall I put it?”

“The bed is fine.”

He folded it carefully, placed it on her bed, covered with an old but clean chenille spread. He glanced up. “High ceilings here.”

“It used to be a warehouse, I think.” She was attaching a sheet of creamy white paper to a drawing board, whittling a charcoal pencil into a fine point.

“Nice space. How did you come by it?”

“Oh, you know. The usual New York story. Sublet it from someone who sublet it from someone who’s subletting it from someone.”

“Do you live alone?”

“I have a roommate, Anna. She has the loft.”

They were in her room. Unlike her studio, which was lush with found objects, her bedroom was bare, spartan. A window. White walls. A twin bed.
An old wooden dresser, doubtlessly rescued from the street. A bookcase made from cinder blocks and wooden planks. A drawing table. An easel. A chair.

There was a mirror hung over the dresser. Photographs and picture postcards were stuck at intervals between the frame and the glass. He moved closer. A girl at a café stared dreamily into the distance, Manet’s
The Plum.
Tessa, her arms around a tall, red-haired young man with a goatee. A Bouguereau
Birth of Venus.
Tessa posing beside a dark-haired girl in a wedding dress, both of them smiling. A sexy black-and-white snapshot of a long-haired girl in lingerie and cowboy boots. On closer inspection, he realized it was her.

She pressed down the button on her tape player. A cool, dry voice rasped through the air, silk and sandpaper.

As the moon casts its cold glow on the day.

The streetlamps on Bleecker light my way,

As my footsteps draw closer, you’d better pray.

While the moon sinks behind Bleecker Street.

She turned to him. It was a different Tessa now, Tessa with confidence, Tessa with a purpose. She surveyed him analytically, her head tilted.

“Stand straight,” she commanded him. “Hands in your pockets.”

He straightened up, did as she told him. The pose made the vee of his shoulders seem wider, his waist narrower as the tails of his jacket flared. The lamp she positioned at his right threw dramatic shadows along his left flank, from his head down to his shoes.

“I’m thinking of that Eakins at the Met. You know, the big portrait in the American Wing.”

“Oh, yes. I know the one.”

“Legs apart. Look down.”

He obeyed.

“That’s too much, I can’t see your eyes. Up a little, just a little. Good.”

He liked it, the way she was directing him, telling him what to do. She frowned, aimed her pencil at him, held it vertically, then horizontally.
He knew she was measuring the height and width of his stance. Soon he heard the familiar scritching of pencil against paper, the acrid smell of charcoal released into the air. Instructed to stare at the floor near her feet, he couldn’t see her face, but he could feel her eyes on him, studying him, roving over his body.

“Okay,” she said briskly. “Jacket off.”

Just like that, no “Please,” no “Would you mind,” just “Jacket off.” He did as he was told. There was a flash of violet satin as he folded it, placed it carefully on top of his coat.

She posed him, taking hold of his arms, his shoulders, turning him towards the light. “Contrapasto,” she said. He shifted his weight to one leg.

This time, he watched her while she drew. A line formed between her eyebrows as she worked to get the contrasting planes of his chest and pelvis, the stresses and folds of his white shirt, the contour lines his braces made running over his chest.

She clipped another sheet of paper to the drawing board. He could see she was hesitating, wanting to ask him something. Ah, he thought. Understanding, he pulled his shirttails out from the waistband of his trousers, unbuttoned his shirt, laid it on top of his jacket.

“Suspenders,” she said.

He pulled them down. They hung around his knees. He stood before her in his trousers and a sleeveless white undershirt. He lifted his arm to remove his hat.

“Leave the hat,” she said tersely. “Hands in your pockets. Relax your body. Slouch. Head down more. Good. Now. Turn toward me.”

He did as he was told. Tessa shut off the overhead lamp. The brim of his hat threw a deep shadow over his face. Hot white light washed down his body, starting at his shoulders, picking out the sinewy strength of his arms, crossing the rise of his pectorals, skimming over the ridges of his abdominal muscles. One eye gleamed, the edge of a cheekbone caught the lamplight. The rest of him was cloaked in shadow. Her breath caught in her throat.